Thief's Legend
by nieseryjna
Summary: Even thieves have their legends.


Spoilers: Minor Season 3x06 "Scott Free", Season 2x16 "Under the Radar"

Disclaimer: Borrowed from USA Network and Jeff Eastin, for entertainment purposes only.

Beta and the story title by fabulous mam711 – many thanks!

And new set of beta eyes: Miran Anders – thank you!

WCWCWCWCWC

"You were there, your tracking—"

"Yes, I was."

The blatantly honest response did nothing to calm the FBI agent. "You don't even try to deny it. Christ, Neal!"

"I didn't do it, Peter. Yes, I was at the opening gala. With Sara." When Peter didn't respond he elaborated, hoping to distract him. "On a date…"

No such luck.

"How did you get in? Forged invitation? Conned your way in?" Peter was fuming.

Neal tried to play it off, his smile bright. "Peter, I'm flattered—"

"Stop playing games, Caffrey."

The con man gave a resigned sigh. "I was Sara's plus one. Sterling and Bosch is insuring the exhibition."

"So you decided to play it close to the vest? You steal, she recovers and cashes in the bounty? Everyone is happy? You just forgot the part where I catch you!" Peter's voice was dripping sarcasm with a side of anger.

"Really, Peter? Do you think we would be so stupid? Do you really think I could convince Sara to do something like that?" Neal gave him the innocent look again.

"Oh, I'm sure you could. You didn't have any problems convincing her to break into Thomas Carlyle's office with Scott!" There was a sharp tone of disapproval in his statement.

"How—" Neal started with disbelief.

"Cut it, Neal." Peter wasn't even angry anymore, just resigned.

Talking with Peter about Sara, diamonds, and heists had an interesting effect on Neal. Especially when he remembered how Sara looked in his bed last night. Face flushed, half-closed eyes observing him; stones spread on her body and spilling onto the sheets, the green matching the color of her eyes.

"Neal!" Peter snapped fingers in front of his eyes.

"I didn't do it, Peter." Neal didn't even try to spin a story. He just repeated the same thing over and over again. "Just take a look over at my place, Peter. You won't find anything." There was a little bit of challenge in his voice, but except for the anger, it was an eerily similar conversation to the one when he'd told Peter to prove he stole the treasure.

"You better be telling the truth." He then looked over his shoulder to Diana who was standing motionless near the door. "Diana, stay with him... And Caffrey, you better be here when I come back from your place. Don't try to disappear and solve this case by yourself, or there will be consequences."

Neal regarded him with stoic calm—at least on the surface—before Peter strode from the interrogation room.

Peter hadn't told him about the details of the theft, and he was curious. The exhibition was exquisite: a rare display of historic jewelry, from four-thousand-year-old Egyptian pieces to the best-known jewelry makers of today. It had everything from earrings, necklaces, and rings to wedding sets, pendants and other decorative pieces.

Looking thoughtfully at his teammate and current guard, he spoke quietly. "Diana. Can you tell me some details? I can help solve this case."

"No."

"Come on. I already know how it could have been done..."

Her raised eyebrow indicated clearly that he was making a mistake. "Want to confess to something, Caffrey?"

"Isn't that exactly what the FBI is keeping me around for? To know how these things are done?" His expression hardened a bit as he challenged her.

"So what are you saying? That you could plan a heist after just one visit?"

His smile was full-on Caffrey-con-charm.

"Well, _allegedly_, I don't even have to go in. But yes, one visit and it's possible. I could list for you right now all entry points, point out camera angles and blind spots, and update your list of missing pieces with approximate values on the black market..." He trailed off, an unspoken but hanging in the air.

"But?" she asked, against her own decision to not fall for his bait.

"But you need to trust me enough to tell me what was stolen." He finished with another open smile, selling it the best way he could.

He still had it. Charm beat running, and as Peter once said, it was better to run with them rather than against. If he could con Diana into letting him in on the case, he was sure he could help. Of course, when the case was solved, he would also have to apologize for conning her, although he hoped both her and Peter's wrath would be mellowed by yet another success.

"You don't even have to show me the list. Just tell me some of the pieces."

Her phone chirped, giving her an excuse to hold her answer. Reading a message from Peter, she made a decision. The apartment was clear aside from the stones that Neal told them were from Sara's necklaces, who they still didn't have confirmation from; there was not much more she could do. With Sara in a plane, and Peter and Jones following new leads, she had to wait, or take him at his word—for what it was worth. Opening the door of the interrogation room slightly, she called an nearby agent to bring her the file.

Neal could barely contain his smirk, but still sat silent, daydreaming about Sara, jewels, and the night before.

A folder with the exhibition and Museum of Art and Design logos on top full of photographs and documentation, a legal pad, and a pencil landed on the table with a soft thump. "Get to work, Caffrey."

He nodded, taking a quick look at the folder contents. The floor plan was a joke: no windows, no cameras, and the scale was way off. The two photographs he saw were quick Polaroid snapshots used for exhibition prep. Poor quality, bad light and absolutely not useful for anyone beside those poor souls that were spending hours preparing the main event. He hid them with disgust, not really bothering to take a look at the rest of them.

"Amateurs," he murmured, before putting it aside and pulling the pad closer.

He started to quickly sketch the correct floor plan and the exhibition, marking entrances, windows and cameras.

"So? Now tell me what was stolen."

"Spanish emerald and gold pendant, sixteenth century. Loan from Victoria and Albert Museum," she read, then looked at Neal's hand moving over the plan. With a few strokes of the pencil, he drew a small pendant in the place it had been before being stolen.

"You really don't have to do that."

"Have you seen that material? Yeah, I do. It would be criminal otherwise," he answered with a cheeky grin.

"Now, you see, this small piece wasn't alone in its case; it was set with some other pieces.…" He was talking looking in Diana's direction, but not really seeing her. His hand moved on the page without his conscious attention. "Picking the lock on the wall side of the case is a ten-second job, and lifting the piece would be easy."

Taking a quick look at the plan, he drew a dotted line to show the camera angle. Then back at Diana, "It's just in the corner of the camera limit; not a blind spot exactly but easy to overlook."

"So this could be an inside job?" The cogs in her mind were going over the possibilities.

"It could be … but I can tell you more when I have more details. Just this piece would be worth…." His gaze fall on the page he was doodling on and he stopped, surprised at seeing a half-drawn picture of the pendant; he didn't remember drawing it. Without further ado he wrote down an amount of money she would never have imagined the small piece to be worth.

Diana whistled softly "Okay. Next piece. Amulet pendant representing a ram-headed falcon, ancient Egypt, dated around 1250 BC. Made from gold, lapis, turquoise and cornelian. Loan from Louvre." The process repeated: a quick sketch, only a few lines on the floor plan.

He studied the plan for a moment, doing what he did best–planning a heist, or in this case, figuring out how it was done.

"This one was more difficult; with the lock on the bottom of the case the thief must have had a reason to go so low. Easy to open, just not so easy to access." Diana observed his hand as it added another sketch beside the pendant sketch; it looked almost like Neal was doodling, except that his doodles looked like masterpieces.

"Caffrey..." When he didn't react, she tried another strategy. "Neal, look, if you didn't steal it ..." His hand stilled for a second. "... then how come you know what these things look like in such detail? You might be a great thief, but you don't have the short guy's perfect recall memory..." His gaze concentrated on her, puzzled. She waved her hand towards the page.

"Oh.…" There was surprise and something else in his posture when he studied his own drawing. If she didn't know better, Diana would say that Neal was unsure and shy about his work.

With a few more strokes he finished the drawing and wrote another ridiculously high price on the black market.

"Allegedly, I could have planned to steal them on one or more occasions in the past," he started quietly. "But I also appreciate fine art, and those jewels are works of art. I like to draw them, so yes, it would be difficult to do this after one night, but not if I'd already drawn them several times before." He finished with another full con man smile in her direction.

She frowned; she'd read the Caffrey Encyclopedia that filled many FBI file folders and was sure he could have taken those pieces by now if he really wanted. He certainly had had opportunities for that in the past. For a moment she wondered if it was true, then, deciding it didn't matter right now anyway, she read another item from the list.

With the next three items: Roman amethyst intaglio engraved gem, Tara Brooch, and Claudius sardonyx cameo, she could see that Neal was trying to stop doodling. He concentrated on the floor plan, adding ventilation conduits and checking camera angles again.

"You see, the theft must have occurred just after the gala finished and the last few lingering guests were escorted out. It's a perfect opportunity, given the right speed."

"How much time are we talking about here?" Diana checked the paperwork, trying to find more information on when they suspected the theft occurred. Neal's theory was sound and agreed with their suspicion that it happened during the gala or right after.

"Getting to just these few pieces it's two minutes, max three. Depending on how many more they took I would say five to seven minutes. Not more." He nodded towards her. "How many pieces total are we talking about?"

"Seventeen."

"There are also other scenarios possible. What else is missing?" he prompted.

"Brooch: 'Bird on the Rock', first Santos wristwatch by Cartier, silver rings by Bulgari, Faberge replica of 4th century BC gold bangle, Lalique gold and enamel pectoral." She listed without adding any details. He made small and simple pictures on the plan, added another camera and its angle. Then sat with eyes locked on the exhibition plan, his head moving from time to time, clearly considering every possibility.

"Necklace, sixteenth century, India, part of wedding set. Onyx, peridot and gold, named Green Goddess. Loan from Kolkata Indian Museum," she continued without being prompted.

His hand stilled in the middle of her sentence, right after a snake head emerged in another doodle, and his head snapped up in surprise. "What?"

"Green Goddess, a necklace; 220 peridots, 440 onyxes and 220 gold beads with a vermeil clasp. What, the great Neal Caffrey never heard of it?" she cajoled with a curious smile.

His surprised gaze changed to ... she wasn't sure she read it correctly. Was that...?

"Caffrey, spill. What's with this necklace? Did you steal it before? Is that just an imitation...?"

"No! No, I would never steal it!" he protested.

"Caffrey!" Her bark was almost biting.

Leaning back in his chair, he smiled a wide grin with a touch of mystery. "Let me tell you a story..."

"In a land far, far away ..." he started with a storyteller voice, slightly hushed, deeper than his normal one.

Hypnotizing.

"A long time ago. There was a small-time merchant by the name of Younas; he had a wife, a beautiful woman with long dark hair and deep brown eyes. Whom he loved more than anything in the world." His hand on the pad was moving again, doodling another miniature masterpiece.

"And let me tell you, that wasn't so obvious at that time in the faraway land. They were happy, but their happiness increased tenfold when they discovered they were being blessed with a child. Younas started making plans for the future, creating a vision where he and his son would work arm in arm to expand his business."

Diana was mesmerized; slowly she took the few steps that separated her from the table and sat in the chair across Neal, silently, to not disturb the story. Neal's sketch was very slowly taking shape.

"But on the day his child was born, his world fell apart... His wife died in childbirth and the son he expected for many months was a daughter. Filled with grief and disappointment, he left the child with a wet nurse and tried forget her existence."

Diana decided not to comment, for now. It was a story, just a story.

_For years he provided money for the care of his child but never visited, never named her, never thought about her future. Till the nurse came forward almost six years later. He was a changed man, bitter, unhappy, driven only by the avarice. He agreed to one visit on the girl's sixth birthday, but his reasons were far from concern about her well-being. She was six; it was time for an engagement, and soon marriage to a wealthy older man. Those were traditions he decided to follow, no matter what the nurse would say._

_The day was cold and wet, with the clouds low in the sky, gray and ready for rain. When Younas arrived at the small home he provided for his child and her guardian, he was already in a foul mood. Angry, he stomped inside, demanding to see the child. The little girl ran through the room with laughter on her lips, her dark hair long and free of bonds, her brown eyes with a touch of green in them. _

_She was a picture-perfect copy of her dead mother._

"_Sadia! Come back here, I need to braid your hair." Nurse followed the child._

"_Oh, master, I didn't hear you. My apologies." She bowed and then turned toward the girl who looked at the newcomer with unguarded curiosity. "Sadia, come here. Bid a welcome to your father."_

_The girl came obediently and bowed. "Father."_

_Seconds felt like hours while he stood in the middle of the room mesmerized by the child, and when she spoke it was the most wonderful thing he had heard. A melodic, soft voice. When he didn't move or say anything for another minute the child couldn't stand still in one place anymore; she started to fidget and send looks towards the older woman. Younas was brought out of his stupor by the girl's movement. Without another word he walked out, right into the rain that must have started in the last moments. _

_It took him the rest of the day and evening, and a bottle of fine alcohol, to get over the sight of his daughter. That night he made a decision that no one, no one would get his child as a wife. He would follow the custom to the letter but ask a bride price high enough that no one would be able to pay, and he would be able to keep her. _

_On the next day, like the custom required, the news was spread to all the families in the city and nearby regions: the asking price for Sadia's hand was not less than five hundred stones and precious metal pieces in the form of a wedding jewelry set. If the future husband came with the stones, the father of the bride would provide five hundred matching pieces to finish the collection within five years, as a dowry. At that time, the girl would be formally engaged to the man providing the jewelry, and as custom required, they would meet on their wedding day, when the finished set would be presented to the bride._

_When the news spread, they were a source of gossip for years to come. Younas hadn't wasted time: for the past few years he'd been building his precious-stone business, thus keeping the other side of the bargain wouldn't be a problem. There shouldn't be anyone else around who would be able to pay the price he was asking. In another few years, Sadia would be past the engagement and marriage age, and after that no one would want her anymore, and she would be his alone._

_Pleased with himself and his plan, he came back to the house he'd left so abruptly only a day before to get to know his child. In the next years he spent every few days visiting, playing and simply enjoying spending time with his daughter. When she entered her twelfth year, all of the girls her age living nearby had been engaged for a long time, and a few were even married; she started asking questions._

"_Father, why aren't I engaged? Why does no one want me for a wife?" she asked in a pleading voice, with her big brown eyes full of confusion._

"_You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, and I only want your happiness and a husband that will be able to provide for you," he explained in the tone he always used, full of love and kindness. In the next months she asked the same question again and again, and he answered in exactly same way. _

_Till one day she stopped asking. Because her nurse, now an old woman, decided to tell her the truth, and she spent the days till her father's next visit crying. Unbeknownst to any of them, a street boy, just shy of his fourteenth birthday, had fallen in love with the beautiful girl with the sunny smile. He heard them talking and felt sad and torn; the price her father asked was too high. _

_He went into the Goddess' temple, a small stone building on top of a nearby mountain, to ask for advice._

_For the last few months he'd been working in the nearby mine, for Younas' company. He was helping in the workshops where the stones were cut and metals refined. He cleaned up the shards, brought tea to the workers, and if he was lucky he learned a thing or two about the stones themselves. That day, he had cleaned up several small piles of shards of pale green stones, and some of black ones too, all smaller than his small fingernail. When he finished telling his story, the Goddess' voice filled the small temple with the advice he had asked for._

"_Every day, bring me a handful of the shards you clean from the workshop floors. Give them to my priestesses, and they will create stones for the bride, but you have to promise to come here every single day."_

_And the promise he kept; every day no matter the weather or how many shards he was able to bring, he went to the temple. There were days when what he brought was only a few pieces, fragile like hair; there were days when he stole right from the cutters' stations some smaller gems. Each year on the girl's birthday he first went to look at her playing in the house, dancing, laughing, before going to the temple and asking how many more days he needed to bring the stones. Each year the answer was the same: many more days to come._

_The priestesses of the Goddess worked each day on the shards the boy brought; they were cleaned and polished, cut if it was possible. Some were sold, some were used as payments, but as promised, some were put away for the boy. There were matched, cut, polished, and slowly, slowly put together._

_It was years later, when Sadia was twenty years old and her father threw a big party in celebration, sure he would keep his daughter nearby forever, when the boy—now a young man—made his daily trip to the temple. This time he cried with his eyes closed, without words blaming the Goddess for not helping him. But then the Goddess' voice filled the temple again._

"_It's time, boy." When he opened his eyes a young priestess came with a cloth-covered tray. When she took away the cloth his eyes widened in wonder: there was a set of earrings, two bracelets and a necklace, all made from tiny black, green and gold beads, with gold clasps. When he touched them he cried again, this time from relief and happiness; he could feel the power of the Goddess in the stones._

_With renewed faith he thanked the Goddess, promising to come back every day till his wedding and to introduce his bride on the wedding day. He begged for the priestess to come with him; otherwise he was sure the old man would accuse him of stealing the set and not keep his promise to give his daughter away in marriage. Not that he wasn't a thief, but the Goddess had kept him safe till now._

_Younas couldn't believe it when the dirty man came to his daughter's house, with a priestess in tow, and the most beautiful set of jewelry he had ever set his eyes on. The jewelry was the bride price he had asked for all those years ago, for the privilege of marrying his daughter. Presented in a house full of guests, he couldn't do anything but agree, with fury shimmering inside and plans to get rid of that man as soon as it was possible._

_The Gods were not in his favor; the orders he gave to get rid of the man that was now formally engaged to his daughter were not fulfilled and more and more dark types showed up on his doorstep to ask for money to remove his problem. They took the money and disappeared, and the man was still there. He threw him out of his workshop, bought the excuse for a house the young man lived in and threw him out in the streets. But still he couldn't stop him from marrying his daughter. With a heavy heart he collected the matching beads and provided them to the priestess to add to the already-existing pieces. _

_Before he knew it the set was complete, and the wedding day had come._

_In one last attempt at stopping the wedding that he still hadn't come to terms with, Younas decided to steal the jewelry. It was the only thing, apart from the death of the groom—which still hadn't happened, not for lack of trying—that could stop the wedding. Without the price paid for the bride and the dowry paid by the family, there would be no wedding._

_He knew where the stones were kept and he followed the path to the Goddess's temple like all faithful people before him. In the very early morning there was no one there; the air was crisp, with a touch of warmth that promised a sunny day. The road to the temple was long, longer than he thought it would be, and by the time he reached the top of the mountain he was exhausted. Spending days sitting in his office made him a weak walker. He dragged himself into the temple and stopped to catch his breath. _

_The temple was decorated for the wedding—the groom had insisted on holding the ceremony on top of the mountain, just as he promised to the Goddess. The jewels were already laid out on the stone bench that was used for leaving gifts for the Goddess; green and white flowers decorated the Goddess' statue and all the walls. Younas had never believed in the Gods, especially not after his wife's death. Taking careful steps towards the giant statue and casting quick looks to ensure he was alone, he arrived at his goal and took the necklace into his hands._

_A shock ran through his body, paralyzing him. Unable to move anything beside his eyes, he tracked with his gaze the statue slowly shrinking and moving around him._

"_Did you think I would allow you to take what is not yours to take? Do you think that the Boy doesn't deserve your daughter? You don't deserve her..." She was circling him, whispering truths and promises, terrifying him to the core. Controlling his body, not allowing him to do or say anything, she controlled his moves. He stood quietly on the father-of-the-bride spot, a trickle of sweat slowly making its way down his spine._

_The Goddess' priestess came and took the necklace from his hand, setting it back on the bench beside the earrings and bracelets. Soon the guests started to arrive, with the bride and groom coming in last. The ceremony was conducted by the Goddess herself; there was no one to stop them now. In the festive atmosphere after the ceremony no one noticed the father of the bride never moving; they didn't notice him not leaving the temple at all._

_The legend says he stayed in the temple forever, slowly changing into an onyx and peridot statue, with a touch of gold..._

When Peter with Jones came back from following the leads on the MAD theft, they found the bullpen almost empty. Except for Blake, who was on the phone, everyone else seemed to have disappeared. At Peter's questioning gaze, Blake pointed towards the interrogation room.

"Figures; leave Caffrey to con the entire Harvard Crew..." He rolled his eyes but started walking in the indicated direction.

"Peter, I'll start reviewing those." Jones lifted the box filled with security camera videos, neatly recorded on DVD discs.

Getting closer to interrogation room, Peter was surprised to see the whole crew standing silently along the walls, clearly mesmerized by the voice flowing from the speaker which allowed them to listen into conversations in the room.

"The legend says he stayed in the temple forever, slowly changing into an onyx and peridot statue, with a touch of gold..." he could hear Neal saying.

"What is it? Bedtime stories in the middle of the day?" Peter's stern voice startled the crew and the young agents quickly left with any kind of excuse they could think of.

Without waiting for everyone to leave, he opened the door abruptly, startling Diana. She looked at him with surprise.

"Boss!" she squeaked, not like her.

"What's going on?" Taking a quick look at the papers and folders on the table, his angry gaze was this time directed at Neal. "What the hell are you doing? Conning agents and telling stories?"

"Peter..." Diana tried to intervene; she had asked Neal for help, albeit he had conned her into it, but still she felt responsible.

"No, I really don't want to hear that. What is going on?" he asked again, a little bit calmer.

"I was just helping Diana find possible scenarios of how the theft could have been done." Neal gave an impression of absolutely not being affected by Peter's earlier outburst.

"Want to confess to something, Caffrey?" Peter repeated Diana's earlier words, making his agent and consultant burst out laughing.

"Sorry, Boss, but that's exactly what I asked Neal in the beginning." They shared an easy smile.

"So what was with the storytelling?" Peter was now curious; Neal was nothing if not unpredictable, and everything he did had some hidden purpose—well, most of the time.

"Just something to do with the Green Goddess necklace." Neal's voice dropped slightly, back to the hypnotizing tone in which he had told the story.

"Yeah, what's with that? You never finished, Caffrey, and actually I still don't understand what it has to do with you claiming you would never steal it?" Diana pushed for an answer, tapping her fingers on the page Neal had been doodling on during his story.

"Neal?" Peter's eyebrow raised in question.

Neal whistled softly. "The point is, the necklace is cursed. Everyone that has tried to steal it in the past was victim to a suspicious number of events making their life miserable. One of the thieves was found dead in a chimney; apparently he got stuck and died the same night, with the necklace in hand. I could tell you both dozens of those stories..."

"You're not superstitious, are you?" Diana quipped.

Neal smiled the same 'I-smile-to-con-you' grin he usually avoided giving her; the possibility that she would harm him was usually too high. "Me, never, but I heard enough of those stories to keep a healthy distance from the items they describe."

He would, of course, never admit out loud that there was one short moment in which he had held the necklace in question in his hands. A very short moment, before a jolt of _something_ ran through his body, scaring the hell out of him and causing him to leave the necklace in its place. He would also not admit that it was just after that event that Kate left him, the Copenhagen job went awry and his whole life just took a turn for the worse. Nope, he wasn't superstitious, just careful. At least now.

With a sigh Peter decided that enough was enough; he took a moment to quickly browse through the pages, Neal's notes, and his drawings. He was only mildly surprised at the detailed sketches; he knew Neal. "Come on, Neal; go help Jones review the security videos—looks like you have some idea of how it was done already. Diana, you're with me; I got a list of people I want to interview today."

"Sure, Peter, but you know we just need to sit and wait for the thief to come to us?"

Diana smiled. Peter just rolled his eyes. Till they came back to the pit and Jones waved at Peter.

"Peter! There's a man in the conference room for you; Blake is watching him. He says he's the one that stole from the MAD yesterday evening..."

Peter and Diana looked at Neal with astonishment.

"What? I told you the Green Bitch Goddess cursed that damn necklace..."

**_The end_**

A/N

Written cos I saw necklace created by elrhiarhodan (from LJ), and I absolutely had to have Neal talking about it! (FF is blocking links so you have to find out for yourself)


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